What a claims allowlist is, and who approves it.
A claims allowlist is the list of things your brand may say, each with its evidence, a date, and the name of whoever approved it.
1. What goes on the list
Every claim gets evidence, a date and an approval status. The evidence is a file somebody can open; the date is when that evidence was true.
A claim is in one of three states: approved, with legal, or no source. The last is not a failure. It is the list doing its job.
2. Grades, not yes or no
Approved is not one thing. Some claims anybody may make; others are true but not something to put in front of a customer. So each claim carries a grade:
Who may say a claim, by its grade
| Grade | Your team | Sales | Customer-facing agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEvidenced | May say | May say | May say |
| BInternal, and sales with care | May say | With care | Refuses |
| CInternal only | May say | Does not | Refuses |
| —No grade: treated as C | May say | Does not | Refuses |
A claim with no grade is a C. Leaving something off the list is never how it gets said.
3. Who approves it
Legal signs off on what is citable. Around that, each role goes to a person rather than a department. For example:
- Claims — Head of Marketing.
- Approvals — Legal.
- Reporting — Head of Brand.
- Escalation — Head of Support.
Our own list has not been through legal yet. Until it has, our grades are our judgement rather than a lawyer’s, and we say so.
4. How a claim changes
Nothing goes out unapproved. The change is proposed, a person signs it off, and the decision stays with the claim. When the evidence behind it goes stale, its status changes too.
While it waits, an agent built to read the list says so. Asked whether you can make the claim yet, the answer is “not yet — with legal”, not a guess.
5. What the list is for
It can say the things the repository has approved. Not things that resemble them.
That is the rule a customer-facing agent works to. Without an allowlist it has nothing to hold to, so it improvises; with one, it can refuse rather than improvise.
